Probably the best way to learn about history is from someone who has lived it. While this limits the past somewhat, it nevertheless should open some intriguing glimpses into days of yore. For example, a conversation with Adrian Anderson of Tottenville is both revealing and nostalgic, and a most entertaining discourse. Mr. Anderson was born in Perth Amboy, N.J., 90 years ago, but his migration to Staten Island in 1944 is a story worth relating.

Adrian's future wife Margaret, born in Charleston but living on Manhattan Street in Tottenville, worked as a ticket seller at the Stadium Theater on Main Street. The movie house had seen its best days, so Margaret decided to seek employment elsewhere. She secured the same position at the Strand Theater in Perth Amboy. Enter Adrian Anderson. While working days at the Perth Amboy Dry Docks, Adrian put in some nights as an usher and, as he put it, "sometimes bouncer" at the Strand. It was his job to toss out anyone who got rowdy and on one evening he bounced four patrons. It was the policy of the theater to refund the expelled person's ticket price, but Margaret refused, so Adrian paid them out of his pocket and then went to the manager of the theater to get his own refund.

Margaret was furious. "She was mad as hell," Anderson recalled with a chuckle, "but I wound up marrying her." She was five years older, now 95, and Adrian said his friends chided his mistake at marrying an older woman. "They said it wouldn't last," said Adrian. "We celebrate our 70th anniversary on Dec. 2." Margaret didn't like Perth Amboy, "That's how I wound up on Staten Island."

Adrian Anderson retired from Nassau Smelting in Tottenville in 1982.

He went to work for Oakland Chemical Company in Rossville, "I did everything, even filled the bottles," Adrian said, "for $1.05 an hour." Later he worked for Nassau Smelting which was part of the AT&T conglomerate, "It ," he said, "was AT&T's junkyard." When he retired in 1982, Anderson was earning eight dollars an hour. He remembered Main Street when he first came to the Island. An A&P, a haberdashery, a post office with a candy store attached.

It being the war years, Adrian and his closest friend, Vincent Danielczyk, tried to enlist in the Marines. "They took him, not me," Adrian said, "they said I had a punctured ear drum." He wistfully recalls Vincent. "We were best buddies. If he had a nickel, I had a nickel." Vincent came home after having been severely wounded by shrapnel. He married, had two children, but passed on while still a young man.

Adrian and Margaret enjoyed their life on Staten Island. He remembered how they went to South Beach where a guy and a girl would dance on a small platform about twenty feet in the air. "That was our entertainment."

The Sleepy Hollow Inn on Bloomingdale Road in Rossville, formerly known as Reinhardt's, was a throwback to the last century. A red wooden building, with a picnic area and a softball field attached, there were a lot of summer Sunday afternoons spent there. (Staten Island Advance)Staten Island Advance

There was a place on Page Avenue and Hylan Boulevard. "They called it a nightclub, but you could get burgers and there was dancing on the week-ends." The couple went to Reinhardt's, later called Sleepy Hollow Inn, on Bloomingdale Road. There was a ball field in back and the food was good. "It was a good place," Adrian said. "Not rowdy at all. You could have a great evening there."

Joe Solomon's place in Charleston had great New Year's Eve parties. According to Anderson, there was never any trouble because the little, wiry, proprietor picked the clientele. "He wouldn't let anybody in who he thought might cause trouble."

If you needed to get your car fixed in those days you went to see Jim Sargent of Sandy Ground. "He was reasonable and reliable," Anderson said. Also in Sandy Ground was Jim Bishop, the only Blacksmith on Staten Island. "You see those rails?" Adrian asked pointing to the front steps of his Tottenville home. "Well, Jim made those rails."

The Anderson family grew to four with the addition of Adrian, nicknamed "Chip" and Dennis. Both are graduates of Tottenville High School. Dennis is the Director of the planetarium at Wagner College. Also an investigator of reported UFO sightings, he has appeared on TV documentary programs. Chip was a first lieutenant in the Air Force during the Vietnam war and is now a construction engineer in Houston, Texas. Chip has a daughter, the Anderson's first grandchild. Adrian visited him on one occasion at Westover AFB in Massachusetts. His son informed him that he couldn't tell him about the classified project he was engaged with, but "he told me that if I walked to the other end of the airfield, they'd probably shoot me. I don't ask any questions," Adrian said. "As it is, when the two of them get together, I don't know what they're talking about. They use a lot of big words."

Time changes everything. Adrian recalls how different it was when he first came to Staten Island. "It was a quiet town, here in Tottenville. Big difference now. Cars going up and down the streets all the time." His mind is agile and the memories abound. He points across the street to the property that belonged to Joe Bedell of the Bedell Funeral home, just across Amboy Road from the Anderson home. He remembered how his boys used to play in the empty Bedell lot. "A good man was Joe Bedell," he says. "Once a guy named Chaz died and had no one so Joe buried him and got him a stone."

Margaret has, for 43 years, worked for the Mental Health Society's Thrift Shop on Main Street that donates all proceeds to children's mental health. For a number of years she was the head cook at Tottenville High School. The couple are members of the Tottenville Chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons who meet at St. Paul's Methodist Church in Tottenville. Times were both difficult and happy for the Andersons. "When we started out," Adrian said, "we didn't have two nickels to rub together." For Adrian Anderson, it's been 90 years on this Earth, 70 of them in Staten Island. Now that's how you build a bucketful of Memories!